Hi les, I was also looking at getting a good star atlas for searching for dso's.
I was lucky enough to recieve the atlas of the southern night sky for my birthday.It is quite good and has got me started on a handfull of new objects but it is not so detailed and does not show all the objects and only highlights some of the best.Though the charts are helpfull to me.
I was looking at getting the sky atlas 2000,as it has a lot of dso's and has stars plotted down to mag 8.Though it does not have a description of the object like the atlas of the southern night sky.I looked around for prices here in Australia and bintel have the for I think $80 or more which I think is a bit dear for a book.But if you have the money I'd say go for it there would probably be loads of objects in it for you to hunt down.If you have a large scope 12'' of larger then I have heard the uranometria series are great charts.
Hope this has helped
cheers Orestis
Ps-The star atlas 2000 is made by will tirion